海外大学院留学、MBA留学申請のためのサポートサービス

Thursday, May 23, 2019

2019-2020 MBA Application Deadlines

Last year, Harvard Business School eliminated
its third and final application round for MBA hopefuls.

COLUMBIA ADDS TWO NEW 250-WORD ESSAYS FOR 2019-2020

Columbia Business School has added a pair of new
essays this year: “Why do you feel Columbia Business School is a good
fit for you?” (250 words) and “Who is a leader you admire, and why?”
(250 words). CBS retained its first 500-word essay: “Through your resume
and recommendations, we have a clear sense of your professional path to
date. What are your career goals over the next 3-5 years and what, in
your imagination, would be your long-term dream job?”

Columbia is the only highly ranked full-time MBA program with a
January class start in addition to its regular September cohort. The
school is fourth behind HBS, Stanford and Wharton for the number of
applications received every year for both full-time MBA cohorts. The
school, which sends out interview invites and admission decisions on a
rolling basis, has set an early decision deadline of Oct. 4th (which is
also the deadline for its January 2020 class start) and a final regular
deadline of April 10th. But if you want to qualify for a merit
scholarship, you would need to apply by Jan. 3, 2020.

The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, meantime, has
so far posted the earliest deadline–for its early action round. The
deadline is a day ahead of HBS on Sept. 3rd. A major benefit of applying
that early to Darden is that you don’t have to be invited to an
admissions interview. Instead, you are able to get one without an
invite. That is also true for early action candidates at Duke Fuqua
during the school’s open interview period from Sept. 11 to Oct. 9th and
at Kellogg and Tuck for all applicants. Darden’s open interview schedule
is between mid-July through the end of September.

APPLY AS EARLY AS YOU CAN BUT NOT UNTIL YOU HAVE DONE THE BEST JOB POSSIBLE

If you
can, apply in the first round when none of the seats in the class are
filled. At most schools, early applicants have an advantage over those
that complete their applications in later rounds. Typically, the second
application round is the largest, and many schools, including Wharton,
advise candidates that round three is the most competitive mostly
because the vast majority of the class seats are already filled. There
are some other reasons why you want to get your app in early:

The ability to receive a scholarship award from the school’s
Financial Aid Office prior to the date by which you must respond to your
offer of admission.

Sufficient time to complete the visa application process for international candidates.

Attendance at a school’s Admit Weekends. Sometimes, round three candidates lose out on this opportunity.

All that said, the best time to apply is when you believe you’ve done
the best job possible with your application. If you have to rush and
cut corners to make round one, don’t. Hold off until another round. At
all the highly selective business schools, admissions officials are
looking for reasons to cut you from the pool. After all, the odds are
substantially against you and as many as 80% of the candidates in any
school’s applicant pool are usually fully qualified to attend. So you
want to make sure you are putting your best foot forward when you do
apply.

We’ll update this list continuously as more schools provide info on
their new deadlines. If a school has released its essays for the
2019-2020 admissions season, you can access them by clicking on the
“Yes” in the table below.